Reel World

I-Eee-Aye Will Always Love You

Just in time for the film’s 20th anniversary and ... something else I can’t seem to recall, Fathom Events and Warner Bros. are presenting a special, one-night-only screening of The Bodyguard. On Wednesday, March 28, at 7:30 p.m., more than 400 theaters nationwide will screen the 1992 romantic drama starring Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston. (... Oh, right.) If you’re interested in re-experiencing the soundtrack-selling classic, Rio 24, Downtown 14 and Cottonwood 16 will be participating here in Albuquerque. Get your advanced tickets online now.

Western Tour

Las Cruces-based film writer and historian Jeff Berg will be making a tour of the state this week to present his ongoing film compilation/lecture series Made in NM Westerns, Part 2. This 90-minute compilation features more than 20 film clips of Westerns shot partially or entirely in New Mexico since 1930. Live narration by Berg will fill you in on all sorts of local movie trivia. Audience participation is encouraged. The event will take place first on Wednesday, March 21, at 7 p.m. at the Western Heritage Museum in Hobbs. The next stop is the Carlsbad Museum and Art Center in Carlsbad on Thursday, March 22, at 7 p.m. Friday, March 23, finds Berg at the Ocotillo Performing Arts Center in Artesia starting at 7:30 p.m. On Sunday, March 25, things wrap up at the Good Samaritan Retirement Center Auditorium in Las Cruces, where Berg will unveil Made in NM Westerns, Part 3 at 2 p.m. Admission is free. Seating is limited.

Pale Rider

The New Mexico Tourism Department’s new ad campaign is already creating a buzz—and it hasn’t even been filmed yet. Our state made national headlines last week when an advertising agency producing a series of television spots for New Mexico put out a casting call for fit and attractive “Caucasian or light-skinned Hispanics” to star in the ads. Needless to say, a lot of locals got upset over the wording. The ads are part of a $2 million yearlong effort by Tourism Secretary Monique Jacobson to attract more out-of-state visitors. In defending their exclusive non-Hispanic-looking Hispanics clause, the ad agency pointed out that the actors would be playing tourists—not native New Mexicans. And as everyone knows, dark-skinned people don’t go on vacation. This is only the latest gaff from the Tourism Department. Instead of hiring some talented local filmmakers, the state outsourced this latest tourism campaign to an agency in Texas—which then turned around and hired some Californians.

Vegas, Baby!

In other interesting info we discovered trolling around casting websites is a new (as yet untitled) television show starring Dennis Quaid, Michael Chiklis and Carrie-Anne Moss that’s scheduled to shoot in New Mexico starting in late March. The show is written by Goodfellas scribe Nicholas Pileggi and is based on the true story of the early-’60s war between Las Vegas sheriff Ralph Lamb and Chicago mobster Johnny Savino. It’s set in Las Vegas, Nev.—not Las Vegas, N.M. So it seems unlikely that anything more than the pilot will be shot here. Local casting agencies are rounding up period-appropriate background extras, however.